A Brave Writer's Life In Brief

The Brave Writer podcast is a big juicy conversation about how to bring learning to life for your kids! Julie Bogart and guests talk about how parents and children are partners in the learning adventure, especially when approaching the daunting task of writing. Brave Writer appeals to homeschoolers, educators, and parents who want more out of "school" than merely passing tests. Visit us at http://bravewriter.com and follow along at the blog for show notes: http://blog.bravewriter.com

Do you ever feel stressed out talking about home education philosophies? When Unschooling, Classical Education, or Charlotte-Mason come up, do you ever feel like you’re going to have to defend yourself? Have you ever felt this way in an academic homeschooling community?

It’s weird, isn’t it?

In this episode, Julie discusses the importance of safe communities, the dangers of ideological purity, the red flags she saw around Unschooling, and three principles for a healthy education.

Before getting into the topic of this episode – the top 10 things to have done by the end of highschool – we want to make something clear: you can’t teach your children everything by the time they’re 18.

As a matter of fact, your education wasn’t finished when you turned 18, either!

It’s okay to save or discover some things in adulthood. And truly, life would be so much less satisfying if learning and growth just stopped when we turned 18.

Homeschooling is, as Charlotte Mason says, providing a feast of ideas and giving your children the opportunity to sample many things, while developing confidence in their own self-educating powers.

That said, there are still some things that all parents probably want to equip their children with before the end of high school – and today we’re going to talk about them!

A disclaimer for this episode: we are not trained experts and our specialty is not special needs, so anything we share today is based on our own efforts to do research and learn from other trained efforts. So nothing in this episode should be considered clinical diagnosis or expert referral – this is all parent-to-parent sharing.

And Julie’s children are all adults now, so the stories she has to share come from the perspective of someone who has already made it to the other side and can see how it all worked out.

Are you a happy family… or are you not? Today, we hope to solve that dilemma!

There’s a temptation to only consider the family identity when we think about our families, and that can be a wonderful identity to share!

But a family is a collection of individuals and we can’t forget that. The friction of human beings living in a family space together is always going to feel a little bit like controlled chaos – and it’s totally okay if that’s the way that it is!

However, making space for everyone in your family to have some of your focused attention and some alone time or downtime is the challenge, particularly for big families. So how can we leverage the unique benefits of homeschooling to do that – and what should we avoid?

We often see families join Brave Writer orThe Homeschool Alliancewho get excited about this style of living, but then we struggle to find other like-minded individuals out there in the world.

Even in the homeschooling community, there can be a big disconnect between your theory of education and a friend’s. This may be someone you like personally, but they have a different vision of homeschool and it causes a little bit of conflict.

There are a few types of friends that you’ll want to cultivate in your homeschooling life, and today we want to share principles and stories that will help you do that.

Today we want to talk about the roles in our families – and the incredible power of choice. We delve into the labels and roles we use to characterize our kids, how those may limit our children, and how to let young people explore who they want to be through choice.

Homeschooling is an empowering choice, and we can leverage that power to provide the best learning environment for our kids!

Julie spends a lot of time looking at the homeschooling zeitgeist, and she notices a common theme coming up every so often: the search for the one thing that’s going to magically create a flawless homeschool.

But really we shouldn’t be aiming for perfection – we should be aiming for progress!

In thelast episode, Julie started breaking down some research on brain-based learning, or the science behind what it looks like to be a good learner. Today, we’re going to dig into the rest of that research so that we have a holistic understanding of how our children learn!

When Julie started learning about home education, she read a lot of work by home educators. Of course this makes sense because she wanted to understand the philosophy behind home education. However, learning the philosophy didn’t teach her to understand how learning functions inside a person’s brain.

So much of educational training is focused on organizational skills, but it’s also important to understand what’s happening inside our children's’ noggins!

Julie coined the term Party School when she was developing her own homeschool experience. Today, we’re going to look at the properties of Party School and how you can turn it into a practice that brings a little enchantment to your homeschool.

With these tips and some imagination, you can transform the study of any subject into something more engaging and fun!

As we get older, we go through many different stages of our lives, and it can be challenging to discuss the topic of “Awesome Adulthood” because of this fact. Not everybody feels like they’re in a position to add anything to their lives, let alone an awesome new passion, hobby, or career choice.

If you have children under the age of five years old, for example, your primary job to to take care of them and your enriching self-education is going to be look like becoming skilled at parenting.

Our hope is that, when you’re in that early stage of parenthood, you will give yourself permission to become effective, understand what you’re doing, and care about that child. It’s a huge responsibility that you have, and they’ll be around for at least 18 years!

But as kids start getting to school age, your primary self-educating focus will shift to becoming a career home educator.

And like the many career educators in public and private schools, home education is indeed a career – but unlike other career educators, home educators don’t necessarily get any breaks from their students.

Without any breaks, the burnout is very real. Too many of us get depressed, feel inadequate, blame ourselves, or isolate ourselves. The joy can dissipate, and the more you devote to the home education task, the worst it gets; “You start to feel like your whole life is consumed with an unattainable task.”

Because not only is the act of teaching exhausting, not only do you not get a break, but your identity is directly tied to how your children perform.

And unfortunately, when you feel depressed or discouraged or joyless, your kids see that too, and they will reflect it back to you like a mirror.

The Remedy is Awesome Adulthood

“If you’ve made your well-being dependent on how somebody else is doing, you are no longer the master of your own soul, of your own wellbeing; you have taken this personhood that is yours and relocated it, in your children.”

What’s the remedy? Staying connected to the you that was you before the “you” became a “We,” whether that’s through marriage, children, or both.

This doesn’t mean you have to find a new career or a time-consuming hobby – you just need to try retaining that piece of you and allow it to express itself.

Does the word “awesome” in adulting scare you? Don’t worry, that’s really not the important part! It’s just alliterative!

Maybe you think of it as being a Happy Adult, or a Fulfilled Adult, or a Meaningful Adult – but you do deserve some time for yourself.

You deserve a prep period, a summer vacation, or a sabbatical… but, unfortunately, that’s not an option. But as a home educator, there’s something you CAN do that other educators can’t: mini vacations!

You can’t necessarily take an extravagant trip for yourself when you have children living at home, but you can still dosomethingfor yourself!

Here are a couple things to think about…

If a subject area in school piques your interest, but your kids lose interest, keep going! “Home education is a re-education for mothers.”

Every day, build in time for choices that make you happy. Even if it’s just for a moment, do something that reminds you that you have choices, value, and wants. The more that you allow yourself to desire, and be okay with that, the more your children have permission to do the same. It’s hard to teach someone to follow their passion if you don’t have experience cultivating your own.

Resources:

Check out this brand new, free product designed to kickstart your writing program this school year:7-Day Writing Blitz(and tag your creative young writers using #BWBlitz on Twitter & Instagram!)

As home educators, what does it mean to have a satisfying adult life? How can we nourish and enrich our lives when we are so depleted from giving away so much to our kids? What happens if we spend so much of our time preparing our children that we end up watching our own lives go by?

Today we’re going to address these questions, and many more, with a conversation about Awesome Adulting.

In 1989, homeschool curriculum programs were few and far between; parents had to assemble products piecemeal, and this problem was far worse overseas. However, Sarita Holzmann decided to help by creating book lists for parents living abroad and then shipping those books to them, all before Amazon and the modern Internet.

Fast-forward to present day: Sarita is the co-founder of successful homeschool curriculum brandsSonlightandBookshark. The book selections are superb, and we especially enjoy the global focus.

In this episode, Sarita shares how books help expand a child’s perspective of the world and how she chooses the 300+ books she reviews each year.

When Julie started homeschooling, all of the curricula she saw focused on what tasks the kids should do – there was nothing explaining to parents what it actually looks like to facilitate that process.

In other words, most writing programs and teaching methodologies said what to do, but not how to do it. So when Julie started Brave Writer, her goal was to help parents and children become partners in writing and learning because she saw that as the key element of a successful home education.

What’s the difference between Brave Writer and some of the other writing programs available online? Julie originally saw the writing process as a relationship between trusted allies; the child and the parent.

You don’t grow a writer simply by focusing on the skill and act of writing – you also have to establish bonds of affection and joy around language.

And it’s so easy and natural to find that joy through Poetry Tea Time (so easy, in fact, that we call it the gateway drug to Brave Writer)!

Anne Guarnera has always been passionate about learning, languages in particular. Anne shares her passion for language learning with her husband, Daniel, and they are now introducing that love of language to their two young sons – and the rest of the homeschooling community through Language Learning at Home.

In this episode, Anne shares how cultural learning can be integrated into any homeschool curriculum, even if you don’t speak a second language yourself.

Today I want to talk about hominess in homeschool, and how you can you help your kids stay on task, while still experience the peace and comfort that home provides all of us.

At Brave Writer, we steadfastly resist images of yellow #2 pencils, school buses, and apples because we are not bringing school into our families. We want to reinforce the properties of home, as opposed to reinforcing the qualities of a faux school.

Home is about relaxing; letting go of obligation and pressure. It’s the place you get to show up as yourself – and when we mix in the properties of school, we’re actually violating that sense of hominess.

Dachelle McVey owns and operatesHide the Chocolate, a blog about homeschooling adventures, parenting, and – occasionally – hiding the chocolate! She currently homeschools her daughters, ages 10 and 12, and homeschooled her son, who is in his first year of college.

We talk about the value of collaborative learning, how you can bring both local and online communities into your homeschool, and bringing your children on literary adventures.

Today we’re going to look at the habit of perfectionism. We all know, deep down, that we have to let go of this compulsion to do things right on the first try, if we want to get better at living a satisfying life. So if we all know that, why do so many of us have this bad habit?

To figure that out, we’re going to explore the different dynamics of perfectionism, look at the topic through a new lens, and come up with some more tools for letting go of the things that just don’t work for us.

Julie has written a lot on thenatural stages of growth for young writers, which help parents place their children and figure reasonable expectations. Today we’re looking at the natural stages of development for home school instructors.

If you are a home educating parent, this is made for you – and if you are married to someone who is not a home educating parent, this may serve as a helpful guide for them. Even if your spouse is not on the exact same journey, it is valuable for them to understand the unique journey you’re undertaking.

Charnaie Gordon is a computer programmer by day, blogger and influencer by night, and a wife and mother of two 24/7. She is also a self-proclaimed lifelong learner, podcast junkie, and diversity and inclusion expert.

In Charnaie’s blog,Here Wee Read, she expresses her creativity and passion for reading, diverse literature, and literacy. More than anything else, Charnaie cares about connecting people with great books that they love because she believes – and we at Brave Writer agree – that books are an absolute necessity.

To be a home educator is to value learning – if you are part of the Brave Writer community, it is because you value learning. Although your children may not be able to articulate it, they know that your home is about learning, and that that is important to their parents. It is this gift that creates the platform for all else that you do.

Truly, if you approach your homeschool from a space of valuing education, as opposed to a fear of public schools, your children have already earned a sacred space in their hearts for learning. Just by living and breathing the value of education around your children, you are already ahead of the game.

With that in mind, this episode contains 61 things that Julie did in her homeschool – and that she is proud of!

Julie homeschooled five children, and today each of them is grown and thriving, in very different environments. We know that homeschooling parents often have some anxiety around the aspirations for perfection that are so prevalent in home school education – but we don’t have to be perfect!

In this episode, we want to dispel some of that anxiety by sharing 55 thing that Julie did NOT do in her homeschool, but at some point thought sheshoulddo (or did do, and at some point thought she shouldn’t do)

Today Julie is talking about one of her favorite topics in the world: morning routines! She discusses how you can approach structuring your mornings, five things you can do before noon, and the educational philosophy behind what we’re trying to achieve with our morning routines.

This is NOT a list of things youneedto do every morning if you want to have a good day of homeschooling – it is an exploration of how morning routines really helped our home school, and how they may be used to help you too.